The Grand Illusion

Presented in partnership with the Frye Art Museum.

Experience an evening of music, film, and unease at the Frye Art Museum as cellist Lori Goldston performs an original live score to Vampyr (1932), the legendary horror film by Danish filmmaker Carl Dreyer. Inspired by the cinematic storytelling and eerie, evocative imagery in the current exhibit Jamie Wyeth: Unsettled, Goldston’s music will amplify the film’s emotional tension and surreal atmosphere.

Dreyer’s interpretation of the classical vampire tale follows Allan Gray, a student of the occult, who arrives in a small French village only to find himself entangled in the plight of a family beset by unexplained illnesses, dark forces, and sinister living shadows. Reality and nightmare blur amidst chilling atmospheres and dense fogs.

Initially dismissed, Vampyr is now recognized as a uniquely haunting and influential treasure. As filmmaker Guillermo del Toro notes, “Vampyr is as close as you get to poetry in film. It’s truly a meditation on life and death and the beyond.”